Scorpion Soup
wealthiest man in the land.
    Then, one morning, he remembered his wife.
    In all the excitement of his new life he had quite forgotten about her or, rather, had suppressed all thought of her because he was having such a good time.
    Changing back into less opulent clothing, he set off in a simple cart to find her.
    A few days later, he found her in the town near to where their farm had stood. A few feet away from where she was squatting, hand outstretched, was the shop that had sold the farmer the glass bottles so many weeks before.
    But the shop was abandoned, all the windows smashed, the door hanging off its hinges.
    ‘Dear wife,’ said the farmer, approaching the huddled figure. ‘I have returned and, as I promised, I have made something of myself.’
    The old woman glanced up, squinted, and slipped back into the shade. She was imagining things again.
    ‘It’s me, your husband!’ cried the farmer.
    Within a week or two, the couple were installed in their mansion. And as the days went by the farmer’s wife grew increasingly used to the lavish lifestyle that instant wealth can bring. She spent a fortune on fine dresses for herself, and was soon bossing her husband around, as she had always done.
    As for himself, the farmer spent more and more of his time in leisure until, one morning, he remembered the three remaining bottles. He asked one of the servants where his old sackcloth bag had been kept. It was brought to him on a golden salver, rose petals sprinkled around the edges.
    The farmer opened the bag and removed the bottles. The labels were far too smudged to read.
    ‘Do I dare?’ he asked himself.
    There was the sound of his wife barking him orders from the salon downstairs. Grimacing, he summoned his courage, opened one of the bottles and quaffed down its contents.
    As before, nothing happened at first.
    The farmer’s wife asked for a purse of gold, so that she might buy herself a jewel-encrusted necklace. Her husband opened his safe and was about to hand over the coins, when he felt a shiver down his spine.
    ‘If I give her this money,’ he thought to himself, ‘she’s going to ask for some more, and then even more, and very soon we’ll be broke.’
    So he put the money back in the safe and shook his head. His wife protested, but he walked through into another room, where he started thinking.
    For the first time in his life, the farmer had clarity of thought, the kind of which he never imagined was possible. He could think of solutions to the most complex problems in science, in everyday life, and the arts.
    On a single day – the day on which the Wisdom was effective – the farmer came up with solutions to a thousand things.
    He worked out how to solve the kingdom’s terrible water shortage, and where to mine the abundant deposits of gold. He settled marital disputes and invented new machines, designed a new city from the ground up, and cured the king of the illness that was about to claim his life.
    Before he knew it, the kingdom was wealthier than any other, and the farmer was celebrated as a visionary of the rarest kind. Realising that his people no longer wished him to lead them, the king abdicated, naming the farmer as his successor.
    A little time passed, and the new king’s initial genius quickly wore thin.
    There were lines of people queuing around the palace, all waiting for an audience – for their king to provide a solution to their woes.
    The farmer sent agents across the known world to find the shop clerk who had sold him the potions.
    But each one came back empty-handed.
    In a moment of desperation he reached into the bag and fished out one of the two last bottles. He had no idea what was in it, but felt sure it would give him the boost he so badly needed.
    Unscrewing the stopper, he sucked down the invisible contents, and prepared for what was to come.
    An hour passed and the farmer’s wife – now the queen – shuffled in. She insisted on an increase in her allowance, and demanded a
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